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May 23, 2017

Christof Koch, James A. Shapiro, and John Hagelin

Dr. Rao

You may wish to look at Christof Koch's ideas on panpsychism (consciousness as universal, pervading the universe). Whether or not you agree, at least now, with one of the world's leading scientists on board, one cannot dismiss outright the possibility of consciousness being, as Sri Aurobindo wrote, "the fundamental thing in the universe."

It is not surprising that gullible public simply accept whatever stories different scientists narrate about different things because our lives are permeated by science and technology as never before. We subsist in an age where all comportment of religious wisdom—from the good moral standards and cultivation of good subjective qualities among individuals in society to the concept of dedication (devotion) to Absolute Truth (God)—faces organized and often furious opposition. Empowered by their own beliefs that scientists have cultivated under an orthodox scientific tradition and their own stories (interpretations) about reality, scientists have declared war on the religious wisdom. We are witnessing so much of disharmony among science and religion these days, which may force someone think that a diabolical agency had put something in the water to create this conflict among scientists and religionists. Even the hardcore scientific literature in the form of books, articles, and academic conferences show a clear trend where an increasing number of honest scientists (who have not allowed themselves to be conditioned by a presumed materialistic stand that the orthodox scientific tradition impose on its practitioners) have raised serious doubts on the credibility of biased science practice that we witness in the modern science. Many of these sincere scientists (as I have given the example of Prof. James A. Shapiro) often express that, due to a biased stand that modern science adopts, the credibility of science now faces risks that scientists cannot easily analyze and increasingly the situation is becoming more complicated and sometimes unnerving.

At a tender age innocent students are asked to accept, for example, that Man is simply an enclosed membrane of chemicals because, the majority of scientists believe the same under the influence of biased scientific tradition. On the contrary there is zero evidence to support the presumption that life can be produced from matter and we all know that even a blade of grass is inconceivable for physicochemical methods which are foundation of modern science. It is very clear that with a presumed materialistic view in mind, by a mass propaganda, scientists have deliberately tried to undermine the religious wisdom and public’s understanding of the consensus about spiritual nature of life. In this bewildering situation the thoughtful scholars have to decide what to believe and how to act on that. In principle true science is meant to decide whether what we choose to believe has a basis in the laws of nature or not... True science warns us, however, that we can deceive ourselves.

Thanks for a detailed reply... I never took a single course in philosophy in my life and my knowledge of Vedanta is also cursory!

As you know, quantum mechanics is the most successful theory in the history of mankind. The agreement with experiments is more than 1 part per billion. The cell phone in your pocket is a glowing tribute to it! And yet, debates about interpretation are going on for some 90 years without any resolution. In fact some Nobel laureates like Weinberg and ‘t Hooft do not believe in any interpretation! The reason for majority believing in Copenhagen interpretation is that it is mostly epistemological. Physicists in general do not like to talk about ontological things because these are overreaching the implications of experiments and epistemological interpretation is lot safer in terms of just inferring what experiments mean. It may very well be that this is the limitation of science.

Bohm’s interpretation (theory) has to agree with experiments and well established theory like theory of relativity. If they have to make it highly non-linear in disagreement with experiments, that would be bad news for the theory. If Bohm’s interpretation is the only one which agrees with Vedanta, then we have to think seriously about the meaning of all this. Scientists are not going to buy that argument. Before we look at extra sensory things, the model has to explain sensory data.

As I mentioned in my article, Adi Shankaracharya’s “Brahm Satyam, Jagat Mithya” sounds good to me. Modern physics already shows the Jagat Mithya in the sense that the world is made out of fuzzy wave-particle stuff and not illusory rigid material we see around! Physics is not yet at the stage of Brahm Satyam!

I have high respect for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Prof. John Hagelin and I am somewhat familiar with his mathematical model of unified field.

Vasavada, Kashyap V

May 23, 2017

...

Hi Bob:

Agree.

The universal model of matter, mind, and consciousness presented in my earlier posted paper vindicates your statement below as well as predicts the observed empirical universe:

“As Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has pointed out, “knowledge is different in different states of consciousness.” In ordinary waking, the physical is relatively the most ‘real.’ In higher states of consciousness, the subtle level (conceptually glimpsed in Bohm’s ‘implicate order’) is experienced as relatively more ‘real,’ and the unity of Vedant is the ‘only reality’ in the highest state, Brahman. In other words, we could say as with QT and some interpretations of Vedant that particles have no ‘real’ properties; but the point here is that it is more coherent and useful to think in terms of particles as having relatively ‘real’ physical properties, underlain by relatively more ‘real’ nonlocal wave dynamics, ultimately nothing other than phenomenal fluctuations of the unified field of consciousness itself as the ‘only reality.’ Mithya relates to being both ‘real’ and ‘unreal,’ depending on the perspective of the state of consciousness of the observer.”

Best Regards

Avtar Singh, Sc.D.

Alumni, MIT

Author of "The Hidden Factor - An Approach for Resolving Paradoxes of Science, Cosmology, and Universal Reality"